SCOTTSDALE, AZAccording to an In-Stat report, "Worldwide Demand for Digital Radio Continues to Rise," the worldwide market for digital radios experienced year-overyear growth of 85 percent between 2007 and 2008. Such growth is impressive because consumer confidence was at its weakest point in more than a decade. The Asia/Pacific region primarily Korea was the main driver of the growth seen over this time period.
"Moving into 2009, developed economies are significantly impacted by the economic turndown. However, developing parts of Asia/Pacific are still experiencing growth in digital-radio shipments," says Stephanie Ethier, In-Stat Analyst. "The reality of the math is that even modest adoption in heavily populous countries, such as China and India, drives a large impact in global shipments."
Worldwide, In-Stat research found that the combined market for satellite and terrestrial digital radio will grow to over 55-million unit shipments in 2012. Among the key suppliers of semiconductor digital-radio integrated circuits are Frontier Silicon, NXP, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments. In-Stat also found that a variety of digitalradio broadcast standards are being deployedincluding iBiquity's IBOC technology, Eureka 147, terrestrial integrated services digital broadcasting, satellite digital audio radio services, and digital multimedia broadcasting.